Searching in the Dark: Towards a Historiography of Queer Early Modern and Enlightenment (Anglo) Ireland

Abstract

I believe and hope that I was asked to write this essay reviewing the study of male—male relationships in the Early Modern and Enlightenment (Anglo) Ireland because of my delight in finding rapprochements and syntheses between apparently opposing views. The syntheses of which I speak, that have in the past been between philosophy and literature, between literary theory and textual scholarship, do not follow any predetermined (say, Marxian) pattern. They are sometimes rather ragged and ungainly, but always, I hope, challenging and stimulating. Such syntheses are best characterized by William Blake’s ideas from Milton and Jerusalem: that it is self-defeating to try to progress by excluding or negating past beliefs. Blake argues that should you move forward by stating ‘that old idea was wrong’ but ‘this new idea is right’, you miss out on the dynamic forces that fire progress. Moving forward by negation, Blake argues, is the progress of normatizing discourse.1 To the present case, it is anathema to queer discourse, which seeks to accommodate all variant forms, modes, approaches and techniques.